Ross Perot may be a chihuahua, but who knows what would have happened if he was president. Seriously. He could have been MUCH better than any we've had lately...or much worse, I don't know. But we'll never know.

From this day forward, you are a community. 100% tax-exempt. Fed, state, city. Your tax liability is zip. Nada. Zilcharooni. El Poof!

But within this community that you are, you have schools to fund, bridges to build, roads to repair, police and fire departments to staff and equip, water and power to provide, and all the other things that are necessary for you to maintain the safety and viability of the community known as John. Plus a military, a national governing body, a coast-to-coast infrastructure... and the list goes on.

Who pays for this? Santa Clause?

Do you abolish currency and enter into barter agreement with all of these entities and — to take a page from Sue Lowden's book — pay for it with chickens?

Or do you ask all of your community members to pool a portion of their money, based on some metric that factors in what each has and can afford to contribute? Sound familiar? Yeah. A tax.

Look, there's no denying that our tax code is kookier than an Escher painting, and desperately needs untangling. But you tell me, if you had to either pay directly out of pocket for all that stuff or do without it all, or if it was all just there all the time for your benefit because some portion of your income helped fund it, which would make you happier?

Again, this is an over-simplification. But your objection to taxes in principle is equally over-simplified — even a tad sophomoric, I'm afraid.

Yeah, let's not place blame on the people who put themselves in this situation! Wouldn't want to hurt any feelings, after all, they were forced by the banks/mortgage companies to take these high risk loans for homes they normally shoukdn't be able to afford.

People lived beyond their means due to greed & consumerism. Plain and simple. When they sunk under debt, the banks (and us) suffered

Obviously people like you and me are too smart to be trapped by the stupidity of greed

But please, nobody, not presidents, banks or even your mother, can force you to sign a high risk balloon loan. Personal responsibility needs to come into play here SOMETIME

So, it was the consumers' fault that the banks sold high risk mortgages and then packaged them up as securities so that they could resell them knowing that they would fail. Yep! You're average Joe could see that coming.

Truthfully John there is no one really decent to run so far for 2012 elections. Obama has a problem where he has no real balls so to speak of and cowers to the republicans mostly.I like his personality but lately as a president of the U.S. I am losing faith in him. I think truthfully speaking he is on the side of big business and wall street and puts on a facade he is for the people. In Wisconsin he never participated in the strikes against Walker and just stood there on the sidelines pertaining to collective bargaining I mean. In Libya he never gave a definitive answer about Ghadaffi about killing him for good or really destroying his weapons bases.Just really nothing concrete at all.

So, it was the consumers' fault that the banks sold high risk mortgages and then packaged them up as securities so that they could resell them knowing that they would fail. Yep! You're average Joe could see that coming.

So, if the consumer didn't AGREE to these high risk mortgages, how exactly would the bank be able to do that?

Sorry, but your argument that it was the banks fault is still unfounded. Try again.

Truthfully John there is no one really decent to run so far for 2012 elections. Obama has a problem where he has no real balls so to speak of and cowers to the republicans mostly.I like his personality but lately as a president of the U.S. I am losing faith in him. I think truthfully speaking he is on the side of big business and wall street and puts on a facade he is for the people. In Wisconsin he never participated in the strikes against Walker and just stood there on the sidelines pertaining to collective bargaining I mean. In Libya he never gave a definitive answer about Ghadaffi about killing him for good or really destroying his weapons bases.Just really nothing concrete at all.

They (Presidents) are ALL like this...some special interest has their hands in his pockets.

Why would the Republicans be any different than Democrats when it comes to running things? I mean, the Democrats were in charge of things but nothing changed.

I see we are going off on a tangent here about taxes rather than the topic at hand.

Michael,are you talking about Corporations? Please, let's leave no mystery or ambiguity to our posts. Speak plainly and clearly.

I'll assume you mean Corporations, but there are people out there that complain about paying taxes.

That's probably because they pay more? I don't know...

By paying more, they are shouldering the support of people that SHOULD be out working and paying taxes, such as welfare receipitants.

I think a flat tax should be the way to go. You pay x% of your income, period. BUT, problem with that is that who would want to go out there and earn more money when you have to pay whatever % in taxes? How does that spur job creation?

I see we are going off on a tangent here about taxes rather than the topic at hand.

Michael,are you talking about Corporations? Please, let's leave no mystery or ambiguity to our posts. Speak plainly and clearly.

I'll assume you mean Corporations, but there are people out there that complain about paying taxes.

That's probably because they pay more? I don't know...

By paying more, they are shouldering the support of people that SHOULD be out working and paying taxes, such as welfare receipitants.

I think a flat tax should be the way to go. You pay x% of your income, period. BUT, problem with that is that who would want to go out there and earn more money when you have to pay whatever % in taxes? How does that spur job creation?

Individuals - the 2% who have 90% of the wealth and want the other 10%. Go back to the corporate tax thread. It specifically points out that no job creation occurred from it previously. If it didn't work then, it won't work now. I suppose you'd rather pay 10 times welfare for incarceration of folks who are denied a living wage through no fault of their own?

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